Nairobi — The Council of Governors has launched the County Financial Management and Procedures Manual for County Health Spending Units to improve efficiency.
Speaking during the launch, Chairperson Ahmed Abdullahi, stated that the manual would position county health facilities as key executors of the Universal Health Coverage agenda under the Bottom Up Economic Transformation Agenda on Health.
"The Facilities Improvement Financing (FIF) Act provides for full financial autonomy of health spending units while the Social Health Insurance Act provides financing mechanisms for those spending units," he said.
The Constitution of Kenya grants the County Governments the mandate to oversee the management and provision of quality health services at primary and secondary level.
The Chairperson acknowledged that for a long time, health has been delivered outside the defined and established governance structure.
This has led to inefficiencies and weakened sustainability in the health sector.
"We are also cognizant that hospitals are now being audited as independent spending units. That means those units must have systems and capacity to manage resources and deliver healthcare services," he noted.
The responsibility of managing and delivering healthcare is vested in the health facility in charge.
The facility in charge must understand the internal and external environment to which the facility exists.
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"We are alive to the fact that the ongoing UHC reforms have drastically redefined how health is to be provided and introduced radical changes," Abdullahi affirmed.
In order for UHC implementation, 43 out of the 47 counties have allowed funds generated by health facilities to be retained and used to pay for services.
He further stated "All the 47 counties are providing complementary funding to health facilities given that FIF cannot fully cover facility needs," he said.
The Council continues to engage Public Finance Management actors at National and County level to facilitate autonomy as envisaged under the FIF Act.
As the Chairperson urged Kenyans to register for the Social Health Authority, he indicated that in two months into the transition from NHIF to SHA, 5,300 public health facilities have been registered, licensed and empaneled under SHA.
"Counties have contributed immensely to the registration of 14.8 million members into SHA thus providing them opportunity to access tax funded primary health care services in Level 2 and 3 hospitals," he noted.
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